Jul 0930
A couple of weeks ago, I called Harris Teeter to order a Thomas the Tank Engine birthday cake for my soon-to-be 5 year old son. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Good morning, I want to order a birthday cake with the Thomas design.
HT staff: Sorry, we don’t have Thomas cakes.
Me: But you have a Thomas cake on display in your bakery section.
HT staff: Sorry, we don’t have Thomas cakes. I think that display is old.
Me: I saw Thomas cakes in your catalog.
HT staff: I haven’t seen the catalog lately.
Me: Okay, I guess I’ll call Costco.
Lucky for Harris Teeter, I am a big fan of the store and was not to be deterred. I went to the store, found a manager, showed him the Thomas cake on display and asked if I could please order it. Yep, he was happy to take my order, especially since Thomas cakes are expensive! I told him that I had called the store a few days earlier and the person said HT didn’t make Thomas cakes. The manager apologized and said that perhaps the person I spoke with was new or didn’t know about the special order cakes.
Yikes! How many sales has HT lost because of this bakery guy? Could this happen in your company? I know this kind of “revenue leakage” has happened in my organization!
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May 0914
All day long, I sit in meetings where my staff, clients and I try to intuit what customers and members want. We look at usage reports, search logs, customer feedback forms, guestbook entries, and survey results. All of these sources give us insight into what customers do, seek and want. But after conducting a focus group for a client this evening, I’m reminded that we need regular face time with our customers and we need to just ask them what they want.
Tonight’s focus group was amazing. Nearly two dozen people gave up two hours of their day to discuss why they are members of an organization, what they like about the Web site, and what would make their jobs easier. Some of the ideas were mind-blowingly simple, while others were flat out brilliant. If half of the product ideas prove economically feasible, this organization has a product road map for the next year.
Speaking of product road maps, I am in the habit of calling a couple of customers after each release of our association management software, MatrixMaxx. I call to check-in, get feedback on new features, and, most importantly, ask them for the one thing they would like to see in a future release. For the 9.1 release, the suggestions were all spot on, some were so easy to implement we wondered why we hadn’t done the work earlier, and some proved to be blockbusters.
But what do you do when you have zillions of customers and you get a flood of customer requests on a regular basis? Google Moderator allows communities to post suggestions/questions and then vote on all ideas submitted. President Obama used Google Moderator to accept questions for an electronic town hall meeting; citizens submitted and then ranked questions; the President answered the most popular questions. Read the rest of this entry
Mar 0931
One of my Project Managers (we call them PMs at Matrix Group) was struggling with an account. The client was frustrated, the Project Manager was frustrated, so of course, now I’m frustrated. I called the client, had a long de-brief session, worked through some issues, and with a few tweaks, the project was back on track. The PM wanted to know how I did that. My secret? I put myself in the client’s shoes.
As a business owner, I get to be manager of staff and projects AND client to our many vendors. As the chief salesperson for the company, I interact the most with customers and users. As a liberal arts person turned techie, I know enough to be dangerous, but I can’t write a line of CSS to save my life. All of this means that I can more easily see a situation from a client’s perspective. Here’s what I’ve learned over the years about clients:
- Clients are busy, the Web site is usually just a small fraction of their job, they don’t spend all day thinking about the Web site, and there’s a whole lot of stuff going on that they don’t know and don’t care to know. We can never assume clients know that a new version of Internet Explorer is coming out and it’s going to be more standards-compliant, that title tags should not be more than 64 characters or Google will ignore them, and that a print style sheet is different from a printer-friendly page.
- Most clients are non-techies who need a technical solution. They seek a solution and a result. We need to give them context for our solution, and enough detail so that they can make an informed solution, but not so much that they get overwhelmed. We also need to communicate concepts using terms they understand. For example, when a Web design has been approved and we have to now slice the design, I liken it to going to blueline. Clients who have ever had anything printed are familiar with blueline; it’s close to a final proof and changes cost time and money.
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Mar 0924
Why is it that going to the doctor is such a miserable experience? I don’t think it’s just because we’re usually sick when we see the doctor. From the attitude of the admin staff, to the wait, to the rushed visit with the doctor, I’m convinced that going to the doctor is usually a horrible user experience.
I went to see a new doctor last week about a lingering chest cold. The receptionist told me to arrive 10 minutes to fill out the required paperwork and I complied. Okay, I expect to wait when I see a doctor, but I didn’t plan on waiting a whole hour to see the doctor. And you know what, the admin staff acted like it was the most normal thing in the world that a patient would wait 60 minutes; nobody talked to me, nobody apologized, nothing. When the doctor finally saw me, she didn’t apologize or acknowledge my wait until I asked her point blank if I should expect to wait an hour each time I saw her. To add insult to injury, she rushed the exam because she was running so late. She said my lungs were clear but wrote a prescription, just in case. Yeah, I felt all warm and fuzzy about this visit. (Not!)
I went to a new doctor because my other doctor, who I had been seeing for four years, never seemed to remember me, always confused me with other patients, and kept trying to push asthma medicine for sinus infections I’m prone to get during the winter.
Does it have to be this way? I think not. When I lived in San Francisco, I had a great dentist. I looked forward to going to the dentist – the dentist! Why? Let me count the ways: Read the rest of this entry
Mar 0917
Click on the image to see a larger version of a screen shot of the Twitter search I used to get info about the iStockphoto site being down.I get nearly all of the photos for my blog from iStockphoto, an online photo service. There’s a good selection and pricing is great. A couple of weeks ago, I was dismayed to find that the iStockphoto Web site was completely down; all I got was a Service Unavailable message.
So what did I do? I tweeted about the iStockphoto site being down, of course. Then I had a brainwave. Surely other people were tweeting about the site being down; what were they experiencing and what did they know?
So I went to the Twitter search, which is a real-time search of all tweets, not just the people you follow. I typed “istockphoto” and got a stream of tweets about the site being down. Okay, so I knew I wasn’t alone and it wasn’t me. But then I started seeing tweets from @istock. Aha, perhaps I could get some answers there. Sure enough, @istock reported that their site was under attack and they were down as a result. I direct tweeted and got a reply back, apologizing for the downtime.
A few hours later, the iStockphoto site was back up. I was still monitoring the tweets on the Twitter search and someone recommended changing your iStockphoto password. I tweeted @istock and got a personal response back, agreeing that I should change my password. Read the rest of this entry
Feb 0927
I am so mad. I booked tickets on Spirit Airlines to attend a wedding in Mexico later this Spring. I booked the tickets on the Spirit Airlines Web site, paid extra to check bags, even paid extra to reserve seats. Here’s the problem: their system shows us (me, my husband, my son) as leaving and coming back on the same day. I KNOW that I did not make a mistake when I booked the flights. Yeah, okay, I should have checked the e-mail confirmation more carefully the day I made the reservation, but I only now discovered the problem, a few days later.
So I called Spirit Airlines and talked to a customer service rep. He politely tells me that I must have made a mistake, that I bought non-refundable tickets, and he’ll have to charge me to change the reservation AND I have to pay all over again to check my bags and reserve my seats. “Are you kidding?” I ask him. “Why would I make plans to be in Mexico for less than 1 hour? Surely you can help me out.” No luck. The customer service rep was polite, but the supervisor was downright rude. “There are no reported problems on the Web site,” he tells me. “I’m reporting a problem now,” I tell him. “I’m sure I didn’t select the same day to leave and come back. And shouldn’t your Web site have caught that problem if I had been so stupid?” No luck. I’m being as nice as can be, but he’s getting more obnoxious by the minute. “You can always report a problem to corporate,” he says. Yeah, right.
So I hang up and weigh my options. I called American Express because they have always, always, always helped me out. I talk to a terrific customer service rep who thanks me for being a “valued card member since 1989.” (Note to self: American Express CRM system shows how long I’ve been a member.) He listens to my story, warns me that even American Express sometimes can’t help out when it comes to the airlines, but he’ll surely try. He puts me on hold for a few minutes, then comes back and reports that he’s filed an investigation and American Express will try to dispute the charges on my behalf. He can’t promise anything, but how do you think I feel? Yep, I’m filled with love and loyalty for my Gold card and the company behind it. Read the rest of this entry
Jan 0930
Every morning, when I boot up my computer and open a browser, I have 4 tabs open to the Matrix Group intranet, Twitter, Facebook and Magnolia. Magnolia is a popular social bookmarking site that I have come to rely on to store and organize my bookmarks.
Imagine my horror when I clicked on the Magnolia home page this morning and found this message:
Dear Ma.gnolia Community Members or Visitor,
Early on the West-coast morning of Friday, January 30th, Ma.gnolia experienced every web service’s worst nightmare: data corruption and loss. For Ma.gnolia, this means that the service is offline and members’ bookmarks are unavailable, both through the website itself and the API. As I evaluate recovery options, I can’t provide a certain timeline or prognosis as to to when or to what degree Ma.gnolia or your bookmarks will return; only that this process will take days, not hours.
Magnolia has been down for most of the day and I’m devastated. It’s not unusual for me to add one or more bookmarks each day to my Magnolia account. And I refer to my bookmarks constantly. For example, while preparing for my presentation on tech trends and their impact on small associations, I scoured my bookmarks under the tags of statistics and tech trends. Read the rest of this entry
Jan 0921
During the last couple of weeks, I made presentations to a couple of clients. The first client thinks we’re good but they’re not raving fans. The second client thinks Matrix Group is fantastic, we are a solid partner and we have contributed greatly to their success. I asked my Client Services Directors: why is there a difference in how these two clients perceive us, our work and our value to them?
The ensuing discussion was an interesting one. We decided that all talk of what we actually do aside (Web design, integration, content management, hosting, yada, yada), what ultimately makes a client a raving fan is whether or not they have certain experiences with us. Regardless of how much money they spend or the type of work they ask us to do, there are core customer experiences that are critical to a client’s happiness.
Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking non-stop about what constitutes an organization’s core customer experiences. I analyzed my membership in the CEO organization Vistage. Vistage offers members a number of services and benefits but the core experiences are: one on one coaching, world class speakers and issue processing with peers. Ultimately, if I don’t feel satisfied that I am getting my money’s worth in all three areas, I’m probably not going to keep my membership. In other words, no matter how good the Web site or the social events, if I am not supremely satisfied with my core experiences, I am going to bail.
I’ve been huddling with my team and working to define our core customer experiences. (We must assume that clients want a fair price for our work, excellent work, and on time results.) So far, we’ve come up with: Read the rest of this entry
Jan 0904
It’s that time of year again: Girl Scout cookie time! My niece is a Girl Scout and I of course want to support her by ordering lots of cookies and selling lots of cookies. I wanted to send an e-mail to friends and co-workers with some helpful links, but found the Girl Scouts and Girl Scout Cookie Web sites not at all helpful. Once again, I had to turn to Google to find information about the cookies!
So here’s the deal. I wanted to send an e-mail and include a link to a page describing the cookies — that’s it, just the cookies. Here is what I found (or didn’t find):
- The Girl Scouts site has a page on Girl Scout cookies. The page makes a nice pitch for the program, but there wasn’t any information on the cookies! I just wanted to know if there were any new cookies this year and make sure my favorites are still being made! At the bottom of the page is a link that simply says Cookies. Turns out that this link goes to an FAQ page but the link doesn’t tell you that. The FAQ page is full of helpful information, almost too much information, but still nothing about this year’s cookies!
- The Girl Scout Cookie site, as far as I can tell, only lets you enter your contact information so that it can be passed to a council in your area.
- God bless Google for leading me to Meet the Cookies, which describes the 2009 cookies — finally! After visiting the Girl Scout Cookies site several times, I finally figure out that there is a link to Meet the Cookies in teeny text in the top left corner. The page opens in a pop-up window so I can’t print the info; yeah, I can get around that, but a less Web-savvy person might not know how.
- Tell a Friend on the Girl Scout Cookies site doesn’t let me add a personal message.
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Jan 0903
A client recently asked if they could run a WordPress blog on their dedicated server. Matrix Group normally hosts WordPress sites on a LAMP (Linux, Apache, PHP/Python) box, but this client has a Windows server, so I checked the WP site to find out about hosting on Windows. I found this technical requirements page and I loved its simplicity and user-friendliness - WordPress Requirements page
The requirements were laid out easily and I appreciated the sample message to send to your Web host. Why can’t every technical requirements page be this easy to understand?
Last thing: I love how every page on the WP site has this simple phrase in the bottom, right corner: Code is Poetry.
